Now, let’s face it…Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews aren’t gonna change their minds and suddenly face the reality that Saddam’s regime was willing to work with AQ groups, did work with AQ groups and leaders, and the threat of the so-called “Nexus of Evil” connection even existed.

Captured members of Al Queda groups from this same camp claim that they were assisted, trained, supplied, and funded by Saddam’s IIS as well as taking orders from Saddam’s IIS.

Captured documents confirm their claims.

Captured regime members confirm their claims.

Now even highly anti-war/pro-Democrat MSNBC confirms the claim itself.

Why believe “Bush Lied”? Because it’s easier to believe that the solution to today’s problems can be solved by changing a circle to a dot on a ballot than it is to face the real and scary threat as well as own up to the failures of the past.

doug

A crude chemical laboratory was found in the village of Sargat. I cannot find evidence of any sophisticated chemical making or chemical delivery equipment on the site; therefore, this hardly warrants an invasion of Iraq; it does warrant a strike.

Here’s how I see it:

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers says, “We think that’s probably where the ricin that was found in London probably came; at least the operatives and maybe some of the formulas came from this site.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comments, “We’re not certain what we’ll find but we should know more in the next three days – three or four days.” [New York Daily News, 3/31/2003]

In a 2007 Tenet will claim in his book, “Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, al-Zarqawi’s camp in Khurmal was bombed by the US military. We obtained reliable human intelligence reporting and forensic samples confirming that poisons and toxins had been produced at the camp.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 277-278] He will further claim that the camp “engaged in production and training in the use of low-level poisons such as cyanide. We had intelligence telling us that al-Zarqawi’s men had tested these poisons on animals and, in at least one case, on one of their own associates. They laughed about how well it worked.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 350]

Yet in April 2003, the Los Angeles Times will report that, “Documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, along with interviews with US and Kurdish intelligence operatives, indicate [Ansar al-Islam] was partly funded and armed from abroad; was experimenting with chemicals, including toxic agents and a cyanide-based body lotion; and had international aspirations. But the documents, statements by imprisoned Ansar guerrillas, and visits to the group’s strongholds before and after the war produced no strong evidence of connections to Baghdad and indicated that Ansar was not a sophisticated terrorist organization. The group was a dedicated, but fledgling, al-Qaeda surrogate lacking the capability to muster a serious threat beyond its mountain borders.”
…
“Tests have revealed the presence of hydrogen cyanide and potassium cyanide, poisons normally used to kill rodents and other pests. The group, according to Kurdish officials, had been experimenting on animals with a cyanide-laced cream. Several jars of peach body lotion lay at the site beside chemicals and a few empty wooden birdcages.” While a lot of documentation is found showing intention to create chemical weapons, the actual capability appears to have been quite low. [Los Angeles Times, 4/27/2003]

Christian Science Monitor will later concludes, the “‘poison factory’ proved primitive; nothing but substances commonly used to kill rodents were found there.” [Christian Science Monitor, 10/16/2003] Journalist Jason Burke will also later comment, “As one of the first journalists to enter the [al-Qaeda] research facilities at the Darunta camp in eastern Afghanistan in 2001, I was struck by how crude they were. The Ansar al-Islam terrorist group’s alleged chemical weapons factory in northern Iraq, which I inspected the day after its capture in 2003, was even more rudimentary.” [Foreign Policy, 5/2004]

After 2004, as far as I know, the hype, the story of Sargat and its chemical “factory” dies in the media and what rises from its ashes is the story of no WMDs.

Scott Malensek

Dave, if I show you an article from 12/8/41 saying Japan attacked the US….would it be outdated and irrelevant? No. It remains a historical fact. I didn’t intend to misrepresent the date on the article, but to show the article and remind people of Saddam’s support for Al Queda groups.

btw, the “that area wasn’t under Saddam’s control” line is really what’s out dated and hypocritical because the only control Saddam had in the N was [drum roll] by using the Al Queda group to do his bidding in exchange for some training and supply from him. Ironic.

I think what we’re seeing here is people presented with a myriad of confirmed and corroborating evidence that Saddam’s regime worked with Al Queda groups (and even the CIA repeatedly published that it would do so in the future if the regime had remained). When presented with facts undeniable by logic, they’re forced to either open their minds that they’d been more misled by the left than the right, OR illogically seek to deny reality w such classics as…’Saddam didn’t control that area [ignoring that his only influence was through the AQ group]’ and ‘that date is old, so it doesn’t matter [as if the older the record of history the LESS true it is rather than more]’

When it gets whittled down to it, the opposition to the invasion has always really been just a catalyst for political alienation, frustration, and rejection of President Bush. Now that such opposition is moot, useless, and ineffectual at removing him from office…one would think that historical (ie dated) fact would pry open the closed minds of faux liberals who are so often proving themselves to be little more than gullible DNC pawns who couldn’t open their mind to any concept or discussion beyond what they hold dear let alone what others might believe…even when the others are supported by multiple corroborated sources etc.

So deny on my friends, but President Obama will take office, and immediately tell you that the fight against AQ is in Iraq, and has to be continued, and like wide-eyed lemmings or screaming teenage girls at a Beatles concert…you’ll not only believe it, but promote it as well.

btw, Doug, GREAT post! I admire that kind of research. The only thing I disagree with is that it was hype. Multiple detainees-AQ and regime-claim that Saddam’s IIS sent orders to Ansar and other groups to do his bidding and give him an iota of control in the N. I also disagree that a little poison and a little poison testing on the part of terrorists seeking to kill as many Americans as possible is somehow not a big deal. For example, if you look at the Duelfer Report you’ll see a pic of some poison found at the IIS HQ. It’s just a can, but it has the same toxicity as anthrax. When people look for a “warehouse” of wmd, they’re looking for a drop in a river. It only takes a little-not a warehouse. Specifically, it only takes a can.

Interesting that we’ve seen so many comments on regime ties in general….and not on things like the 2002 Zawahiri letter.

Aye Chihuahua

editor

A crude chemical laboratory was found in the village of Sargat. I cannot find evidence of any sophisticated chemical making or chemical delivery equipment on the site; therefore, this hardly warrants an invasion of Iraq; it does warrant a strike.

Doug,

There was no single piece of evidence which was relied on exclusive of all others.

This location, and the activities going on there, was just one more link in a long chain.

Dave,

An honest error was made in presenting this article as being recent.

The error was immediately discovered and corrected.

If the MSM did the same thing I cannot imagine anyone here that would fault them for either the error or the correction providing that the correction came in a timely manner.

Another thing to keep in mind as well is that the MSM does this stuff for a living. The standard, therefore, is higher (or should be).

We post because we enjoy it. We don’t get paid and our livelihoods don’t depend of our absolute accuracy.

Therefore, one could rightly expect our error rate to be a bit.

The linked article does not have a year in the byline so I can see how the mistake was made.

Scott

author

I love Love LOVE that line, “______hardly warrants an invasion of Iraq.” Oh, that is AWESOME. I mean, really….does anyone believe the invasion of Iraq was the result of a single [fill in the blank] reason? Omg, if there’s one thing everyone should agree on it’s that there’s a long list. Even opponents of the war have a long list of alleged reasons for the invasion.

doug

Scott said,

“I love Love LOVE that line, “______hardly warrants an invasion of Iraq.” Oh, that is AWESOME. I mean, really….does anyone believe the invasion of Iraq was the result of a single [fill in the blank] reason? Omg, if there’s one thing everyone should agree on it’s that there’s a long list. Even opponents of the war have a long list of alleged reasons for the invasion.”

However, it’s been argued that preserving a strike on the camps helped build the case for war:

[MSNBC] With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

“Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,” said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.

Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.

“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam. [my emphasis]
…

[WSJ] As the toll of mayhem inspired by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi mounts in Iraq, some former officials and military officers increasingly wonder whether the Bush administration made a mistake months before the start of the war by stopping the military from attacking his camp in the northeastern part of that country.

The Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002, giving the administration a series of options for a military strike on the camp Mr. Zarqawi was running then in remote northeastern Iraq, according to generals who were involved directly in planning the attack and several former White House staffers. They said the camp, near the town of Khurmal, was known to contain Mr. Zarqawi and his supporters as well as al Qaeda fighters, all of whom had fled from Afghanistan. Intelligence indicated the camp was training recruits and making poisons for attacks against the West.

. . .

But the raid on Mr. Zarqawi didn’t take place. Months passed with no approval of the plan from the White House, until word came down just weeks before the March 19, 2003, start of the Iraq war that Mr. Bush had rejected any strike on the camp until after an official outbreak of hostilities with Iraq. Ultimately, the camp was hit just after the invasion of Iraq began.
…

and…

A former top CIA spy says the United States deliberately turned down several opportunities to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

Mike Scheuer headed the CIA’s bin Laden unit for six years before resigning in 2004.

He has told the ABC’s Four Corners program the Bush administration had Zarqawi in its sights almost every day for a year.

He says a plan to destroy Zarqawi’s training camp in Kurdistan was abandoned for diplomatic reasons.

“The reasons the intelligence service got for not shooting Zarqawi was simply that the President and the National Security Council decided it was more important not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers,” he said.

“Mr Bush had Mr Zarqawi in his sights for almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn’t shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq.”

In essence, containment was overturned by an interest, for whatever reasons, to invade and Zarqawi was needed to establish this goal.

Doug, you disappoint me, guy. Zarqawi had been operating bio/chem training camps in Iraq since 1998 (from my reading in early 2003). And I have little doubt that intel… what little we had at our fingertips after the 90s bloodbath of HUMINT … would have also been available to Teflon Bill and Not-So-Albright of his existence and camps there.

Are you suggesting that:

1: the US would have had no problems bombing just Zarqawi’s facilities post 911 with the int’l world?

2: that the destruction of his training camps would have stopped Saddam’s association with Zawahiri (a much bigger and more powerful fish…) and other militant groups sympathetic and willing to work one on one with AQ?

If you buy this as an argument, you are the fool the media took you for, and your thought processes disappoint me greatly.

The reason’s GWB went in are for the reasons we see in the Iraqi Study Perspectives recently released. They, in fact, confirm the int’l intel we used as the foundation – and were supplied to he and Congress (thus their approval of AUMF) and not to the public. Only now are you getting a clue…. except you’re not getting a clue!

The simplistic American needs a simple answer… oh, it’s Zarqawi or WMD… it’s because Saddam wears a silly beret. Anything to occupy them for 2 seconds so they can return to Entertainment Tonight and American Idol. Load ’em up with real facts, and their eyes glaze over…. just as aptly demonstrated now by oh so many.

bigpapa

So AQ attacks us in 2001,,, we go after them in Afghanistan and then Iraq…

The Japanese attacked us in 1941,,, so we went after them all over the Pacific…

What’s the freaking problem?????

Christ,,, good men and women volunteer to defend this great country everyday,,
Some give all, and some will live with injuries the rest of their lives.

Screw you whiny ass liberals and your BDS… almost everyone of your socialist leaders voted for the war….
Most didn’t even read the information they were given but did it out of the selfish notion that it would get them votes and keep their commie asses in office.
Then,,,,, they flip flop..

I’m sick of Rinos and liberal/socialists… quit trying to bring this Republic in to the communist ideal.

My gun’s always loaded, and I’m really quite patient before pulling the trigger, so not guilty. But if it’s my post that has you befuddled, just look at the two questions.

You can’t honestly believe that “containment” as applied to Zarqawi and thug/comrades alone was either going to be internationally sanctioned, OR a productive progress in battling jihad elements present in Iraq and elsewhere.

Or do you??

And nope… while we see differently on most aspects, I don’t think you’re a media conformer. Thus my surprise at your “containment” comment.

doug

I believe Z., his camps and cohorts, should have been hit.

Just as in 2002 there was a push on us to paint those who favor containment of unfriendly regimes as somehow “pussies”, times haven’t changed all that much for the ‘pushers’ of war, we’re still seen as lazy mother hens. But if one looks past the label…

Sometimes it’s too easy to forget containment worked against Stalin and Mao –both unbalanced and evil dictators with nuclear weapons; both formidable tyrants with wicked dreams of world domination. Yet we managed to preserve our security without resorting preemptive war.

Sometimes it’s too easy to forget containment worked against Saddam Hussein– an evil, ugly twisted US puppet we kept him in a box for a dozen years; he was no threat to us or his neighbors. In 2002, he even had to accept the return of United Nations weapons inspectors — who found no weapons of mass destruction because, thanks to our efforts, he had none.

And sometimes it’s too hard to remember, due to the pain, that if we had understood the complexities of Iraq, stayed with containment, instead of coopting what the Brits endured, how the Iraqis have suffered, came to oppose our occupation, we then might have not have done the invasion.

But that’s just history.

Now it’s all about Iran. One should never forget that Iran is now what it is because of our invasion. We emboldened and strengthened them; we did that while we weakened ourself, over staining our forces, resources, alliances.

So now do we want another preemptive war? Are the Iranians are too crazy to be deterred from using nukes against Israel or giving them to terrorist groups to use against us?

One common trait of governments and their leaders is an overriding desire to survive; it’s the will-to-life that precedes the Will-to-power on a social scale. If Iranian nukes are ever used for aggression, the regime can be sure “Iran will be”, as Hillary so blunted put it, “obliterated.”

We aren’t pussies.

Preemptive hawks like to brush us aside for their various reasons, they never think we are “getting it;” unless we summon their ‘free “military” spirits’ that can cause citadels to fall and new empires to reign out of their destructive creativity, then we are ‘old-school’. Thus, anyone that doesn’t accept their post 911 mindset they regard as a fool.

However, preemptivity is a dangerous path to travel –philosophically, historically and politically. We’ve now seen how it can go wrong. I don’t care how preemptivists may perceive the facts of this; they actually don’t matter; who matters is everybody else! …perception and perspective rule here! Politics is the art of perception; war is the height of political engagement; thus, war is perception. If you can’t manage the media wheel, you have lost the war, your enemy has gained advantage and it is just time and resources before you lose.

This happened to Europe and now it’s happening to Americans; the public turned against a war that the media –rightly or wrongly– controlled and reflected back to us our discontent and opposition; it solidified our sentiment against the war and the administration… and congress when it would not stop the war, when it was elected to do so.

These Americans have learned the hard way. Now they understand preemptivity as fool’s gold; they are more patient, more skeptical, more sober. It’s the pre-emptive contingent hawks that still don’t grasp these basic points.

One, three, five years from now, Iraq will lean closer and closer to Iran; they will because they have a common history, religion, culture, …. As that happens, we will have “lost”. Not because we didn’t bomb Iran, or, win with the surge, or any other military action. We will have lost because the public/political/polis turned against us as we ‘perceived’ it in the media mirror.

That is why preemptivity is risky business and containment a wiser option.

Sometimes it’s too easy to forget containment worked against Stalin and Mao –both unbalanced and evil dictators with nuclear weapons; both formidable tyrants with wicked dreams of world domination.

Yet they were a state enemy… not a rogue group of cockroaches running from friendly territory to friendly territory. Nor were they spread out across such a wide region as the Middle East and Africa as the global Islamic jihad movement. Add Indonesia etal as well.

Different enemy requires different tactics.

Sometimes it’s too easy to forget containment worked against Saddam Hussein– an evil, ugly twisted US puppet we kept him in a box for a dozen years;

Really? IAEA was booted out in 1998. When they were there, they were led around like monkeys on a lease to prepared locations. I have to wonder how he obtained those Samoud missiles they rapidly discarded in the Netherlands junk yard… and the rest of the various proscribed stuff we can’t find and isn’t accounted for? And the Oil for Food scandal helping him to thwart sanctions is not of our imagination. So I question your definition of “containment”, Doug.

This Americans now learned the hard way. Now they understand preemptivity as fool’s gold; they are more patient, more skeptical, more sober. It’s the pre-emptive contingent hawks that still don’t grasp these basic points.

Yes, Doug. The nation is in that frame of mind. We will sit back and wait for another 911.

Yet if that “preemptive” strike on Iraq takes hold, and AQ enjoying less support because of them proving to the world they are un Islamic animals by their warfare on the Iraq battlefield, we may have done enough shift in their nests to hold it off for awhile. We can only hope it’s for generations and that the new Muslim youth are not raised on jihad and hate.

We aren’t pussies.

Agreed wholeheartedly… for now. I’ll hope that remains the case thru future POTUS terms. It is not a given anymore.

DW 5000

We will sit back and wait for another 911

To make the discussion meaningful, it would be helpful if you were to define your terms. For an attack to qualify as “another 911,” it have to have a certain death toll? Does the target need to be of a minimum size? Or does any terrorist attack on American soil count as “another 911”?

Tell us, General Einstein, what is your recipe for guaranteeing that we will never be attacked by terrorists again?

Well, DW… despite the fact I was not addressing you, and that you apparently didn’t read my conversion with Doug, I’ll make this simple.

With fine, upstanding citizenry advocating trading surrender for peace – like yourself – being the country’s “majority” (so you tell us…), it’s unlikely this nation will engage in preemptive protection while under your choice of POTUS.

However, the tea parties of talk will abound. Put the int’l caterers on alert…

And while no one can guarantee we will never be attacked, returning to the vunerable state we were Sept 10th is dangerous retrograde. Disengaging battle with the jihad movement in order to have a friendly chat with persuasion is a suicide pact.

So why don’t you ask yourself your own questions… then get back to someone who may give a damn.

DW 5000

Nicely dodged! You’ve thoughtfully left the door open for any attack to be portrayed as “another 911.”

To be consistent, however, the Right will need to blame Bush for anything that might happen during a hypothetical Obama presidency, as Clinton has been the whipping boy for everything bad that happened on Bush’s watch, even years after Clinton left office.

So why don’t you ask yourself your own questions

Well, because I’m not the one blathering on about how this or that Left-wing idea is going to cause the next 911, and I’m not the one pretending–as you are–that I have all the answers to the questions.

Please, General Einstein, shower us with your wisdom. Maybe a President McCain will appoint you to the Joint Chiefs.

You must have confused me with someone that gives a damn, DW. Dodge? No. Just no patience to explain the obvious to the oblivious. Frankly, you and your simplistic, and extreme anal vision bores me to tears.

You might have to get one of the other FA’ers here to play with you. One blessed with more patience for gutteral debate.

bigpapa

Tell you what DW or Doug… or anyone else who cares to argue….

How many Americans do you have to kill to make it a terroist act???? 3 according to the FBI….
So anymore than that and it’s a terrorist act…..
If it was your mom or dad or brother or sister …. then how many does it take?

I was in the military draw down during the clintoon administration… I know the facts I was there…
All of you stupid libs like to point you grubby little fingers…. but we (the United States,,, look it up) were perceived as weak because of clintoon much like carter….. and so we were hit…

You stupid f#$ks have no concept of what it takes to make this country safe for all you idiots to go about your daily lives safely ……
You whine and cry about this and that….. but you’ve never given anything… I have, my friends have and you should be grateful to them… not me.. them…

If our opponents percieve us weak they will attack… as soon as any one of these terrrorists have a nuke they will use it….
God help you if it’s in your town….

You can go suck off Barry and “feel” good about yourself but at the end of the day you will still be a POS..

In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq’s biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors.

“We did not reveal all that we have,” he says. “Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct.”

There’s more. Indeed, as late as 2000, Saddam can be heard in his office talking with Iraqi scientists about his ongoing plans to build a nuclear device. At one point, he discusses Iraq’s plasma uranium program ? something that was missed entirely by U.N. weapons inspectors combing Iraq for WMD.

This is particularly troubling, since it indicates an active, ongoing attempt by Saddam to build an Iraqi nuclear bomb.

“What was most disturbing,” said John Tierney, the ex- FBI agent who translated the tapes, “was the fact that the individuals briefing Saddam were totally unknown to the U.N. Special Commission (or UNSCOM, the group set up to look into Iraq’s WMD programs).”

Perhaps most chillingly, the tapes record Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz talking about how easy it would be to set off a WMD in Washington. The comments come shortly after Saddam muses about using “proxies” in a terror attack.

…there’s a lot we don’t know. Many documents and records were destroyed during Invasion.

stayed with containment, instead of coopting what the Brits endured, how the Iraqis have suffered,

Were we not blamed for 500,000 Iraqi children who suffered and died under the policy of “containment”? While Saddam built palaces for himself in every city and his regime’s coffers filled with “food-for-oil” farce, his people suffered….and we were blamed and held responsible for it.

Damned if we did…damned if we did not.

Mata brings up “Food-for-Oil”. How was that working out? Any UN and French officials being bribed? Working with Saddam behind the scenes to eventually have sanctions lifted?

If we continued on with the status quo of “containment”, knowing the possibility of his allying with Islamic terrorists to use as proxies, where might we be today? Would sanctions still be in place? And what did the Duelfer Report warn us of, should those sanctions have ended?

Now it’s all about Iran. One should never forget that Iran is now what it is because of our invasion. We emboldened and strengthened them; we did that while we weakened ourself, over staining our forces, resources, alliances.

Why not go further back in time to Carter’s Administration? The Shia half of the rise in Islamic militancy can be traced back to Carter’s blunders.

Had we not removed Saddam, would the world be in a better place today? Cancer treatment is not without going through a period of pain…especially if not detected and treated early on. How much longer should we have allowed Saddam and his sons to metastasize?

One common trait of governments and their leaders is an overriding desire to survive; it’s the will-to-life that precedes the Will-to-power on a social scale. If Iranian nukes are ever used for aggression, the regime can be sure “Iran will be”, as Hillary so blunted put it, “obliterated.”

But how real is the “Ahmadinejad belief” in the 12th Imam theology? Given that- given the willingness of Islamic Holy Warriors to martyr themselves to serve Allah- can religious fanatics in control of Iran be trusted not to behave…suicidially if it brings about “God’s plans” and ushers in a whole new era of a super caliphate?

wordsmith

In 2002, he even had to accept the return of United Nations weapons inspectors — who found no weapons of mass destruction because, thanks to our efforts, he had none.

What if Saddam’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamil, head of Iraq’s WMD programs, not defected in August of 1995? UN WMD inspectors were surprised by what they learned from him: “Iraq admitted that it had weaponized BW agents and deployed biological weapons for combat use.” The admission was thanks to our luck in the defection; not in the luck of inspectors.